BERLIN (AFP) – Senior diplomats from six major powers will meet in Berlin on Thursday to prepare for crucial negotiations with Iran about its contested nuclear drive, the German foreign ministry said on Wednesday.
"The political directors will consult with each other on this on the sidelines of a meeting held to prepare for the G8 summit" in Germany in June, a spokeswoman for the ministry said.
She said the talks would group diplomats from Britain, China, France, Germany, Russia and the United States.
The US State Department had said the meeting would take place on Wednesday.
According to Washington, the aim of the talks is to thrash out a common strategy ahead of new negotiations between EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana and Iranian chief negotiator Ali Larijani in mid-May.
A United Nations deadline for Iran to freeze its controversial uranium enrichment programme expires on May 23.
The UN Security Council has already imposed two sets of limited sanctions on Tehran in a bid to force it to halt enrichment.
The UN nuclear watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency, is due to issue a report in late May about the Islamic nation’s progress in complying with the demands of the international community on its nuclear programme.
Tehran says the aim of the programme is merely to provide its people with sufficient electricity but the West suspects it is trying to develop a nuclear arsenal.
Uranium enrichment is at the heart of the standoff as it not only yields nuclear fuel but in its highly purified state it can also produce the fissile core of an atomic bomb.
The six major powers met in London on May 2 to assess the outcome of the first set of talks between Solana and Larijani in April in Ankara.
